Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Corona Extra Suzuki Team Manager Landers Sevier V and wife Jennifer had a daughter, Lilla Tynes Sevier, June 8 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Lone Star Track Days lead instructor Stephen Porter married Julie Traweek June 12 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

From a press release issued by California Superbike School:

California Superbike School goes to Brazil

Keith Code’s California Superbike School will be running in Brazil this week. Code hopes to open up the twelfth country for his schools. Running at the Nelson Piquet circuit just weeks before the Moto GP to be held there in Rio De Janiero, the school hopes to get the feel for the Brazilian riders and their needs.

Code says.”We’ve always gone into countries that have read the “A Twist of the Wrist” books but we don’t have it in Portugese yet, it is one of the 7 translations we arecurrently working on. We’ll check it out then see if we can add a new continent to our schedule.”

The California Superbike School currently runs all across America, England,Ireland, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Greece, South Africa, The Phillipines, Australia and Malaysia on franchise agreements using the school’s rider training technology and format.

Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Thieves took a 2002 Suzuki DR-Z400S Super Motard streetbike belonging to Former WERA Mediumweight Superbike Class Endurance Champion Jim Williams.

The bike was stolen June 14 from the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C.

The bike is blue/white/black with 17-inch wheels, hand-cut Michelin road race tires and has a Clark fuel tank. It wears a Maryland license plate “786D86”, and has VIN #JS1SK43A222100052.

To view a picture of the bike, go to http://www.13x.net/pictures/Other/04-06-14%20StolenDrz/index.html

Anyone with any information can reach Williams at [email protected].

Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. Former motocross star Rich Thorwaldson, 58, who suffered severe brain trauma in a crash during an AFM road race at Infineon Raceway May 30, remains in a “deep coma” and “is showing no signs of improvement,” according to a website set up by his family, www.richardthorwaldson.com. A June 14 posting by Lee Felch on the website bulletin board states that Thorwaldson was recently transferred from John Muir Medical Center, near San Francisco, California, to Saint Mary’s hospital, near Thorwaldson’s home in Reno, Nevada. Felch reported that plans are being made for Thorwaldson to return to his home, where he will receive hospice care. News is better regarding first-year Expert James Chance, 18, who crashed his 2004 GSX-R600 during a WERA C Superbike race June 6 at Roebling Road Raceway, near Savannah, Georgia. According to Chance’s father, Jim Chance, the young man lost his front brake lever on the front straightaway due to contact with another rider, did not realize he lost the brake lever until he got to his braking marker at Turn One, ran straight off the track and impacted an earthen barrier at a high rate of speed. According to his father, Chance was transported to Memorial Hospital in Savannah with two collapsed lungs, a fractured C2 vertebra and a severe concussion. He was placed into a drug-induced coma, and fully woke up on June 15. “He has been off life support and breathing on his own since 8:00 p.m. Monday night, so now they are trying to find a regular room for him so he can leave ICU (Intensive Care Unit),” Jim Chance told Roadracingworld.com Wednesday. “He’s still foggy. It was a pretty nasty head injury, but he’s doing good. “Now they are going to concentrate on his fractured C2, but they haven’t found any spinal cord or arterial damage and he can wiggle all of his fingers and toes. So that’s good. “Right now all of the information from his doctors is good. We don’t know how long his recovery is going to be. It’s up to him, but so far he has been on top of all their best-case predictions.”

From a press release issued by Laguna Seca Raceway:

CROWD-PLEASING SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP HEADING TO THE USA

10th Annual Honda Superbike Classic Set For July 9-11


MONTEREY, Calif. – The stars of the Superbike World Championship (SBK) are headed to the USA for their only appearance in the Western Hemisphere at the Honda Superbike Classic July 9-11 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

The 2005 season is producing crowd-pleasing races and shaping up as one of the most competitive in all of motorsports, with six different riders taking victory in the 12 races staged thus far. (Each championship round includes two separate races.)

Frenchman Regis Laconi (Ducati Fila) has won a series high five races this season and leads the world championship over teammate James Toseland of Great Britain. Toseland won the season-opening race at Valencia (Spain) and has added five second-place finishes to trail his teammate by only three points, 171-168.

Fan favorite Noriyuki Haga (Renegade Ducati) comes to the States third in the championship (139 points) and one of the hottest riders on the circuit. The Japanese rider has won three times this season, including twice in the last two rounds. As a two-time winner at the Honda Superbike Classic (Race 2 in 1998 and Race 1 in 2000), Haga is considered one of the favorites in next month’s event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Fourth place in the championship with 137 points is Chris Vermeulen (Ten Kate Honda) who is fulfilling the promise he showed in winning the 2004 Supersport World Championship. The 21-year-old Australian earned his first win – as well as the first win for the Honda CBR1000RR – in Race 2 this past weekend at Silverstone (Great Britain). Vermeulen led all but the last lap of Race 1, before yielding to Haga in the final turn. He then led all but two laps in Race 2 en route to his maiden victory.

Italian Pierfrancesco Chili (PSG-1 Ducati) took a popular win in Race 2 at Misano (San Marino) earlier this season and has five additional podium finishes, placing him fifth in the championship with 129 points. The SBK veteran, who turns 40 later this month, is a crowd favorite in Monterey, particularly after winning Race 1 here last season.

Sixth place in the championship, just one point behind Chili and three points behind Haga, is Australian Garry McCoy (Xerox Ducati Nortel Networks), winner of Race 2 in his home race at Phillip Island.

Veteran Troy Corser (Foggy Petronas) joins Haga and Chili as the only former Honda Superbike Classic winners entered in this year’s races. The Australian won Race 1 in 1995, Race 2 in 1998 and Race 1 in 2000. Corser, who won the 1994 AMA U.S. Superbike Championship, is currently sixth in the point standings (95), with his best finish being a second place in Race 1 at Misano.

Tickets are on sale now for next month’s Honda Superbike Classic, featuring the Superbike World Championship and the AMA Chevrolet U.S. Superbike Championship, as well as a complete schedule of AMA road racing support series. Tickets are available by calling (800) 327-SECA or logging onto www.ticketmaster.com or www.laguna-seca.com.

More event information is available at www.superbikeclassic.com.

From SPEED Channel:

12:00 p.m. FIM World Supersport, Silverstone
1:00 p.m. FIM MotoGP, Catalunya
2:00 p.m. AMA Formula Xtreme, Road America

8:00 p.m. Two Wheel Tuesday with Greg White
9:00 p.m. American Thunder
9:30 p.m. Corbin’s Ride On

12:00 a.m. Two Wheel Tuesday with Greg White
1:00 a.m. American Thunder
1:30 a.m. Corbin’s Ride On

3:00 a.m. FIM 250cc Grand Prix, Mugello

All times are Eastern Time.

From a press release issued by Plummer Menapace, Pirelli’s advertising and public relations agency:

PIRELLI’S FINAL ISLE OF MAN RECORD: SWEPT TOP SIX PLACES IN EVERY MAJOR TT; TOP 20 PLACES IN SENIOR TT

Also Dominated WERA National Endurance and Challenge Races At Fontana With Five Podium Sweeps

(Rome, GA) Pirelli came to this year’s Isle of Man TT with an enviable record to beat. Over the past two years, its racers have dominated every TT they entered, sweeping the top positions and shattering records along the way. It would have been a serious accomplishment to simply echo those achievements for a third straight year; it would be the stuff of dreams to better them. The dream came true.

When all the results were tallied at the 2004 event, Pirelli tires had swept the top six positions in every TT its racers entered (which means all of them except the 125cc and sidecar events), and the top 20 places in the event-ending Senior TT. They also broke two more lap and race records.

It didn’t matter which bike – Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki. It didn’t matter which rider – Adrian Archibald, John McGuinness, Bruce Anstey, Ian Lougher, Mark Parrett, Jason Griffiths. Pirelli’s latest generation of slicks and DOT Supercorsa tires simply owned the world’s best-known test of performance, endurance, punishment, and, this year, rain.

TAS Suzuki’s Adrian Archibald received the Joey Dunlop Award for best combined finishes in the Formula One and Senior TTs with his second- and first-place finishes in those races that open and close the week-long annual meet. But the way John McGuinness and his Yamaha R1 won the opening Formula One race – by demolishing the IOM top-speed record by over five seconds – and then going on to win two of the next three races – the Lightweight TT (400cc) on a Honda CBR400RR and the Junior TT (600cc bikes) on an R6 – McGuinness began as the odds-on favorite to be the week’s hero. In fact, given his early success, McGuinness admitted that a run for the unprecedented five-win record might be in the offing. It wasn’t to be. Ryan Farquhar won his first-ever TT, putting his Kawasaki ZX6RR on top of the box in the 600 Production TT, the first Kawasaki to win an IOM final in many years, while McGuinness finished third after mechanical problems cost him his early race lead. Then came a DNF mechanical that took him out of the Senior TT after building yet another commanding lead with average speeds in the 127+mph range – Archibald, last year’s Senior TT winner, biding his time in second.

New Zealander Bruce Anstey, another multi-win Isle of Man veteran and Archibald’s TAS Suzuki teammate, won the 1000cc Production TT on his GSX-R1000, beating, who else, McGuinness. (Anstey also took seconds in the Senior and 600 Production TTs.) Both McGuinness and Anstey annihilated the lap and race records for the 1000cc TT, McGuinness breaking it by over six seconds on the opening lap. But Anstey went even faster over the 37.7 mile mountain road course in 18 minutes, 5.7 seconds at an average speed of 125.10mph. In his earlier Formula One victory, his fourth Isle of Man win, McGuinness had crushed the existing overall record by over five seconds with a new top average speed of 127.69mph on Pirelli 16.5-inch slicks.

There was some fine stateside road racing last weekend as WERA made one of its new WERA West series forays to the California Speedway. And Pirelli racers again came away with some very impressive results in both the National Endurance and National Challenge races.

Vesrah Racing, the reigning WERA endurance champions, rode their Pirelli-shod GSX-R1000 to the win in the six-hour race, beating the Army of Darkness and re-taking the points lead from them.
Pirelli racers also swept the podiums in five National Challenge events – some of them five deep – just missed a sixth sweep, and captured two additional victories. In Open Superstock, Tray Batey, Mark Junge, Matt Furtek, and John Jacobi gave Pirelli the top four spots. Batey again led a Pirelli podium sweep in Heavyweight Twins Superstock, with Roger and Myron Bell taking second and third respectively. It was Batey again, twice more. He led a top-five Pirelli sweep in Formula One, and five of the top six in 750cc Superstock. Teenager Nicky Moore, on a new GSX-R600 that he and his dad had just finished building, was the first of five Pirelli Supercorsa riders across the line in 600cc Superstock, led another sweep in 750cc Superbike, and followed them with a win in 600cc Superbike, giving him three victories for the weekend.

Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The $100 million New Jersey Motorsports Park, proposed for development in Millville, New Jersey, has established a website at www.njmotorsportspark.com.

The website includes a project overview, a development timeline, press clippings from local newspapers and an architectural drawing of the project, including the 4.1-mile Thunderbolt road course.

To see the architectural drawing, go to: http://www.njmotorsportspark.com/html/architectural_drawing.html

From a press release issued by Ducati Corse:

CAPIROSSI CONFIRMS: “THE NEW ENGINE IS BETTER”. TWIN PULSE WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR THE ASSEN GP FOR BOTH DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM RIDERS

Catalunya (Spain), Tuesday 15 June 2004 – The second and final day of testing for the Ducati Marlboro Team at the Montmelò Circuit, Catalunya, was cut short by changeable weather conditions. Heavy showers during the morning meant that Loris Capirossi was unable to lap with any consistency, but the Italian did go out on the track for several laps to gauge the behaviour of the new engine in the wet.

Team-mate Troy Bayliss, who crashed spectacularly during Sunday’s race, opted not to continue testing today and returned home this morning to get back into shape as quickly as possible.

Loris Capirossi only completed a few laps in the wet, but this was sufficient to confirm yesterday’s positive sensations: the new engine considerably improves the bike’s ‘rideability’, a characteristic that Loris particularly appreciated given the characteristics of the track.

“We are really pleased with the debut of the new Twin Pulse engine”, declared Ducati Marlboro Team director Livio Suppo. “Loris confirmed that power delivery has improved, even in the wet, and we are preparing for Assen with renewed optimism. I am convinced that Troy, after a few days rest, will be in perfect shape in the Netherlands and we can’t wait to get back out on the track again. The first races of the 2004 season have not been easy, but Ducati Corse is showing that it has a capacity to react quickly and a determination to become protagonists once again that I feel sure that we will soon be rewarded with results.”

The new irregular firing order Twin Pulse engine has met with approval since being tested at Mugello and, as confirmation of this, both Ducati Marlboro Team riders will use the new engine in the Dutch TT at Assen.